Posted
by
samzenpus
on Monday August 20, 2012 @05:19PM
from the time-to-upgrade dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Apple's new Retina MacBook Pro is essentially completely non-upgradable, a sealed-box, following a trend started with the MacBook Air in 2008. It's a given that hardware companies are in the business of selling hardware, and would love for computers to have iPhone-like replacement cycles of 1-3 years. But does this mean we're moving irresistibly into an era of 'sealed-unit computing,' even for power users?"

Exactly. When you order a new Mac on Apple's website, it warns you that you can't upgrade ("Please note that the memory is built into the computer, so if you think you may need more memory in the future, it is important to upgrade at the time of purchase.").

I've got a 2006 MacBook Pro - for reasons all my own, I've never upgraded the OS, but neither have I downgraded it... bit by bit, piece by piece, the things I still do with that computer are stopping working, typically with each software patch pushed via the web.

Similar story for the XP machines we have, though one of those finally fried a power supply and put itself out of our misery.

Does it warn you that since the battery can't be removed then in 3 years the laptop will be tied to a power outlet in the future? I don't mind (much) that laptop parts can't be upgraded but is it really too much to expect parts that are definitely going to fail after a few years (battery, fan) to be replaceable?

If the battery fails it may actually ruin the computer as well, very often they don't just passively stop working. Ie, they swells up and crack boards instead of just popping out, or they leak and shorts stuff out.

Since we're swapping anecdotes, my 2007 MacBook Pro came with a battery that started bulging out so much that it wouldn't lay flat. It had about 200 charge cycles and less than 30% health at that point. I got it replaced for free even though I didn't have Apple Care.

As for me, I had a 2008 black macbook which worked flawlessly, but in the beginning of this year, it started to turn off by itself once a week. I bought a imac, transfered the data from the macbook and went 1 month without even looking at it.

When I tried to use it again, the battery, which was at 95% health when I last used it, was completely useless: it wouldn't charge, reset, or any trick I could find in the internet. I removed a memory module (which was faulty, and the reason why it turned itself off som

Anecdote time, my 2006 MBP didn't have a "batteries known to blow up spontaneously" serial number, so I didn't get a free replacement battery (though, multiple friends of mine did get one.) In 2009 the battery did stop working, so I bought a replacement and that replacement - sold by Apple Inc. with essentially no warranty - did blow up like a balloon after less than a year. If it was not removable, it would have destroyed the laptop.

I've been working as a Mac Tech for some 6 years now, and swollen Apple batteries are quite normal. In fact, I've seen it happen to units since 2006 and up to their current generation. This may occasionally break other components in the unit.

Does it warn you that since the battery can't be removed then in 3 years the laptop will be tied to a power outlet in the future? I don't mind (much) that laptop parts can't be upgraded but is it really too much to expect parts that are definitely going to fail after a few years (battery, fan) to be replaceable?

If you can afford to buy a MBP with retina display, then you can afford to pay Apple to replace the battery, or just buy a new MBP.

The high end Apple products are not designed/marketed for the average person, they are designed/marketed for the average rich person. This is seen by the lengths Apple goes through to make sure that Apple products are NEVER seen as cheap ( banning the use of the word 'free' for iDevice giveaways etc etc )

I've had my first gen macbook pro's battery replaced twice. Once right before applecare ran out, and once about 4-5 months afterwards. No hassle at all to get it replaced, free both times. Not sure why anyone's bitching. It's not like Apple's replacement battery price is way out of line compared to others, and on top of that, they do the work for you, so, errr, where's the problem...?

1. You have no choice but to buy from Apple and once they drop support you are SOL.

2. You can't carry a spare battery for long journeys.

3. You can't safely dispose of the machine yourself, you have to get Apple to deal with the battery. Since the SSD can't be removed either if the machine dies there is no way to remove your data first.

Why is this modded down? Besides, the Retina MacBook Pro batteries ARE replaceable, you just replace the entire top-case with battery, keyboard and trackpad as a single unit. It's $200 including the Apple-certified work to replace it: http://www.apple.com/support/macbookpro/service/battery/ [apple.com]IMO, at the time the battery is worn-out, the top-case/keyboard/trackpad have seen better days anyway, which makes this operation much more affordable than on earlier MacBook Pro models.

It doesn't end there. Eventually you wont be able to build your own devices or find any that support minimal upgrading/repair. When the masses want toasters, eventually that is all that will be manufactured.

I don't like it either, but I'm not going to delude myself that we will *always* have 'open' systems. With a bit of luck ill be retired by then and i wont have to care.

Go ahead and tell yourself we won't always have open systems, but if you really think that there aren't plenty of people out there like you and I who are also working at hardware companies and assuring their management there is a sustainable market segment of people who want computers they can open up and fiddle with (which there absolutely is) then you're seriously missing the mark on how many tech folk there are (real tech folk, not the ones who think they're techies because they memorized an apple produc

But is that what the masses really want? I think many new people buy Macs because of the reputation of them being less trouble and the aesthetic attraction of OSX. And the hardware. The fact that they are becoming more and more non upgradeable is more an incidental that people just tolerate as part of the experience. I doubt that if a poll was taken that most people would say they don't want upgradeable computers. Compare sales of Macs to ultra book Windows laptops and note the fact that on the Wintel side people are by and large staying away from the super thin hard to upgrade stuff. I think people are reading too much into the popularity of iPads and recent Macs and drawing erroneous conclusions.

Laptops will never be "appliances" so you might as well forget that loaded terminology now. Laptops and yes the MacBook pro are programmable computers which is the exact opposite of a Microwave or TV. And the really funny thing is that any real appliance that approaches the price of a MacBook Pro actually is user serviceable. Anybody with a small amount of mechanical aptitude can replace the filter in the intake on a washing machine. And if they can't, they have a plethora of repair people to call in the ph

> Good luck with finding a laptop with the MBPwRD's dimensions or display that you can upgrade.

You labor under the false assumption that the rest of us accept the set of tradeoffs that Apple has ordained for you. Whereas you are forced to frame your response in terms of those things that you (wrongly) think we can't have, we are quite happy to take advantage of the diversity that the rest of the PC marketplace allows.

We are simply not limited to those narrow few choices that Apple will allow you to have.

Exactly. Most of us couldn't give a rat's ass about retina displays which i personally think on a smaller screen is kinda stupid, but we DO care about being able to upgrade our systems. On my netbook I can upgrade the RAM, change the HDD for an SSD, replace the battery with one of several third party, including a few that make 10 cells so I can run all day, there are even tutorials on how to swap out the screen for a touch complete with links to the screen if I decide I would like touch down the line.

This is why I'll never be an Apple customer, I LIKE being able to upgrade my laptop or netbook so I can get more usage out of it, I LIKE building my own desktops so I can have just the right amount of CPU, RAM, HDD space, and GPU that I need with the option to get bigger down the line, and if I don't have retina to get all that? Fine by me, although there are websites that cater to the medical community where you can buy ultra HD screens in just about any size that you require and frankly with the tutorials it really isn't hard to DIY a screen swap. If you really don't feel comfortable with a screwdriver you can always come by the little mom & pop shops like mine, we'll be happy to do the work for you and when all is said and done you'll end up with a nicer machine built with what YOU want and not what Apple decides you can have this year. Seems like a no brainer to me, but then again I'm not an Apple customer.

BTW slightly OT but has anyone else noticed that Apple users just don't seem to be happy unless they can convince you "the Apple way" is the RIGHT way? They just don't seem to be able to be happy with a product unless they can somehow get others to think they were "right" and the other way is "wrong". My personal theory is there is a doubt sitting there on their shoulder going "You paid too much" and the only way they can soothe that doubt is to get others to agree with their purchase. Personally I like Asus and Samsung laptops, Asrock and Gigabyte boards, and HTC phones, but I don't really need anyone to like or dislike the brands I use because they are a personal preference no different than the pizza i eat or the shoes I wear. I'll just never understand this "need' for want of a better term of Apple users to try to justify their selections. If it makes you happy? Then please use it, I wish you nothing but good luck. but please don't try to make this a black and white issue because its really not, its personal preference, that's all.

Ok, then; how about "Good luck finding a laptop that you can upgrade anything but the main drive and perhaps the RAM. And even the SSD in the MBPwRD is theoretically upgradeable, since it is on a subassembly with a connector.

The T and W-series ThinkPads have socketed CPUs.

And the displays can be upgraded.

And the drive is removable, so you can add Blu-Ray or whatever you'd like.

And Lenovo publishes complete manuals with step-by-step instructions detailing how to disassemble everything and how to replace pretty much any part (along with a list of the FRU numbers for said parts.)

And they let you order individual parts (or you can just get them from any number of third party suppliers.)

Seriously, it's great if laptop makers can truly build upgradeable machines that don't sacrifice reliability in the process. But I remember the era of Dell laptops with socketed CPUs and upgradable video cards, and it wasn't all roses and unicorns.

I believe it was the old Latitude CP series where the CPU used to work itself loose from its socket over time, resulting in a system that refused to boot. (One of the "fixes" that used to get one going again was pressing down hard with the palm of one's hand near the center of the keyboard. The keyboard assembly happened to be right over the CPU and would flex enough to allow re-seating the chip, at least for a while.)

The models with the supposedly upgradeable video cards turned out to be more hype than substance too, because the type of video boards they took were proprietary, and no longer manufactured at all after 2 or 3 variations went through their initial production runs.

Ultimately, even on desktop PCs, expansion capabilities really don't get people too far.... Sure, you can upgrade processors -- until AMD or Intel goes and changes the design of the socket and pin layout. Then you're just as stuck as the next guy with his CPU soldered onto the motherboard. Same issue with RAM. Most machines only provide between 2 and 4 DIMM sockets, with a motherboard chipset unable to map/use more than a certain amount of memory. So what usually happens? The RAM upgrade becomes a nice thing to have initially, for the folks who tried to go cheap on the initial system purchase and selected less RAM than was optimal to save a few bucks. They get the chance to "buy now and pay later" to put the RAM in that probably should have really been there from the start. But down the road? You wind up saying "Gee... I'd like to upgrade this PC to 16GB of RAM but the board only supports 8. Oh well...."

Don't get me wrong... I like having a machine I can service myself if I determine a part died. And I've usually upgraded hard drives in most machines I've owned, as well as adding RAM to some, or upgrading the video in my higher-end machines. But as we demand ever lighter weight, slimmer portables with more and more functionality - we're really demanding technology that doesn't have any room for spare sockets, cables and connectors. It all depends on what the goal is, really. Expandability and modularity comes at a price of taking up extra space. Apple is big on going "cutting edge" with the "how small can we make this?" question on their minds -- so it makes perfect sense they wound up where they did, with not even so much as a removable laptop battery.

"We should also point out that this memory is actually soldered to the system's motherboard. So whatever configuration you get from the factory, be it 4GB or 8GB, that's what you've got for good, period."[source [hothardware.com]]

In a given T-series Thinkpad, there's several different displays with the same physical dimensions, and different resolutions. There isn't much holding the display onto the rest of the laptop except a few screws and a couple of cables with connectors. Replacing the display (along with the rest of the lid, which usually also contains the WiFi antenna and webcam) is fairly simple, so if you want to buy a dead laptop with the better display on Ebay and upgrade yours, it's not hard to do.

Oh no, a whole pound... Are your arms really so weak that a pound is even noticeable to you?

There's more to the trade-off than that: 1) Thinkpads have the best laptop keyboards in the industry, bar none. 2) Thinkpads are more ruggedized than just about any other laptop out there. 3) Being able to swap components out is pretty valuable if you're a business with an IT department and the data on that laptop is far more valuable than its purchase price, or you'd like to be able to reuse good components from bad laptops to get a better return on your hardware investment than simply throwing it away when one thing breaks.

Grishnakh strong! Grishnakh no sissy under baggage load! No, not the whip!

Um, ok. Every week makes a difference. Number of connections makes a difference. I find it makes even more of a difference when travelling in Europe, where they frequently weight (and weight-limit) carry-on bags.

Yes, one pound makes no difference when it's "once in a while". It's a different story when you're always on the road.

Ok, then; how about "Good luck finding a laptop that you can upgrade anything but the main drive and perhaps the RAM. And even the SSD in the MBPwRD is theoretically upgradeable, since it is on a subassembly with a connector.

How about not moving the goalposts every time someone points out one of your posts as the blatant fanboi-ism that they are? Hell, you could have went ahead and asked your follow up without looking like an ass, just by prepending "You're right about that, but" to your response.

To answer your new question, I have an old Dell 1500 series that now sports a custom matte display (which I prefer over the stock glossy one), a Blu-ray burner (stock was a DVD-ROM drive), an upgraded CPU (original was 1.8 Ghz Core II Duo, swapped with 2.6 Ghz version), and of course, maxed out RAM and a big-ass HDD.

Sure, I'm pretty much stuck with the crap-tastic Intel G45 graphics setup, but I was still able to upgrade far more than the RAM and disk space as you implied.

Most laptops have upgradeable hard drive, RAM, Wifi adapter, and optical drive, and rather than custom tamper-proof screws newer models have a single removable underplate and are very easy to work on. Some have upgradeable video cards and even CPUs.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that one. Yep, with your non-Apple laptop, if it's a few years old and the battery either dies or only lasts a short time, you can just go on Ebay and buy a new (aftermarket) one dirt-cheap that'll work just fine. With an Apple laptop, you either keep it plugged in all the time or you throw it in the trash.

Oh yeah, I totally forgot about that one. Yep, with your non-Apple laptop, if it's a few years old and the battery either dies or only lasts a short time, you can just go on Ebay and buy a new (aftermarket) one dirt-cheap that'll work just fine. With an Apple laptop, you either keep it plugged in all the time or you throw it in the trash.

Again, the same nonsense modded 5 insightful. A quick search on Amazon will show you many Apple laptop batteries. I just replaced my wife's 2008 MacBook battery for $40 (new and mfg. by Apple, not a third party).

Ok, then; how about "Good luck finding a laptop that you can upgrade anything but the main drive and perhaps the RAM. And even the SSD in the MBPwRD is theoretically upgradeable, since it is on a subassembly with a connector.

I'll take that. Just not having to pay Apple's markup on memory would be a good enough reason to buy something else.

Incidentally, I replaced a battery in a friend's ipod mini last month -- was surprised that the storage was a commercial SanDisk card soldered onto the board.

The Retina display MacBook Pro is practically a non-entity in the conversation as very few people are paying 2 grand for a laptop anyway. Yes, the retina display is really nice but all it's really going to do OS move new MacBooks to previous owners and move MacBooks to new owners that would have bought anyway. The mainstream purchaser is in the 3-6 hundred dollar range and it'll be a long time before 2880x1800 resolution is a factor there.

Recently bought a Thinkpad T430. 1600x900 is plenty for this form factor. Can't see why anyone would really need anything more (unless they're using some giant 19" display or something).

Oh, is it crisper graphics or something? Wonderful. I use my machine to do work, write code, and only at the end of the day when I am falling asleep in bed do I bother to put Netflix on (which also looks fine.)

Retina is a great example of Apple snowing their customers into purchasing something th

You may not like Apple, but the retina display is awesome. Being forced to settle for a 1080p display is a crock of shit. At least now that Apple is pushing higher resolution displays, it just might force this ridiculously inept notion that 1080p is the best display we can hope for out the window, and force other manufacturers to once again push the bar on high dpi on LCD displays.

I'm a Mac head, I love my Apple computers. But, I'm not happy at all with this push for non-upgradeable machines. I have upgraded the RAM in my MacBooks, I have swapped out hard drives, I have swapped optical drives for hard drives. I love being able to change out parts. So, personally, I'm not too keen on having no upgradeability in the retina MacBook Pro, and I probably won't be getting one. I'd be perfectly happy if Apple continued to do "pro" and "non pro" lines, but it seems they are going all consumer these days, and people like me mean less to them than ever before, and the word "pro" in the line's name has become meaningless.

I don't find the base price of the machine unreasonable, on the other hand, I do find the upgrade pricing for RAM and solid state storage to be unreasonable. I can now buy a 512GB solid state drive for $400. Getting the same through Apple, I have to pay a hefty premium. Same goes for RAM. That's always been true. And I don't really buy their argument that it has to be that way to make them so thin.

But back to my original point, the high res display itself is great, and personally, I want more of that kind of innovation in the market, not less. The soldered on RAM, SSD, and glued in batteries? Not so much. I'm capable of looking at this objectively and giving praise where it is due and leveling criticism where it is due. Is it just because Apple came out with a nice high-res display that we're now to think it is somehow not useful or innovative? Dumb question, this being Slashdot I expect very little in the way of reasonableness toward Apple.

If they matched a competent GPU with that 2880x1800 resolution, then I might agree with you despite the fanboi troll speak you are spewing, BUT a GT 650M is a despicably under-powered GPU for such a large framebuffer. At least have some pride and use a 680M. Good luck driving even a mediocre level of shader computation against that resolution. But hey, it makes Facebook and Word look pretty!

It very much is the way things are going to be done and it turns out, people like it. The experiment was first tried with the MacBook Air and people bought it without hesitation. Had the Air been a flop this wouldn't be happening.

Or put another way, I've never met someone that "upgraded" their laptop after 2 years anyway. They hand it down or put it to work in the corner of the room, but they aren't upgraded. Whether it is a Dell, Mac, or Thinkpad. I put more ram in mine after 3, but I think I"m by far the exception. The most upgrades laptops probably ever received was in that period of time when you could replace the old hdd with ssd and get a huge bump. Now we're falling out of that even as laptops come stock with ssd.

Yes, people aren't interesting in upgrading their laptops. As for servicing them it isn't worth it for Apple anymore. It's cheaper to pay a worker bee in China $0.05 to make a new one than it is to pay someone in the US $20/hr to fix one that's broken.

It very much is the way things are going to be done and it turns out, people like it. The experiment was first tried with the MacBook Air and people bought it without hesitation. Had the Air been a flop this wouldn't be happening.

Or put another way, I've never met someone that "upgraded" their laptop after 2 years anyway. They hand it down or put it to work in the corner of the room, but they aren't upgraded. Whether it is a Dell, Mac, or Thinkpad. I put more ram in mine after 3, but I think I"m by far the exception. The most upgrades laptops probably ever received was in that period of time when you could replace the old hdd with ssd and get a huge bump. Now we're falling out of that even as laptops come stock with ssd.

Besides memory and HDs; how many laptops are truly upgradeable, anyway?

And from the looks of things, it looks like the SSD will be upgradeable [ifixit.com], at least at some point. The memory is another story; so get as much as you can when you buy. But isn't that de regeur with most computer purchases, especially laptops?

I own a MBP13 that I upgraded myself soon after purchase to 8GB of RAM and I plan to upgrade it to 16GB and an SSD when they both become more financially reasonable to do so.

I also own a Lenovo G555. I tried to replace the keyboard and found that it was a real bitch to do so. Why? Because Lenovo doesn't even know what particular keyboard model a G555 may be using and you have to disassemble the entire laptop to find out what it is before you can buy another for $70 or $80 (from sketchy sites) and $100+ (fro

Actually the MacBook Air sold rather... let's say "slowly"... for the first year or so, to the point that a less... "committed" company would have discontinued it. It was unpopular, because it was so much more expensive than the rest of the MacBook line, for a machine with the least horsepower, no CD drive, etc.. When the price came down into the territory of the white MacBooks then costumers went for it.

No thanks, Apple. I've had enough. The custom temp sensors / connectors for hard drives in the iMac? The obliteration of your Server OS in 10.7... countless other slights, rough terms/conditions... I always somehow managed to keep pulling for Mac and OS X because I felt it was the best UNIX workstation you could buy. Yeah, keep closing up.. as your market share grows you'll see more of this -- your restriction of choice will eventually get the best of you if you're not careful.

OS X 10.6 Server added a lot onto 10.6. Starting with 10.7 they removed a lot of this and replaced it with a heavily dumbed down replacement. Up until that point, from at least 10.2, each release of OS X Server was a nice improvement over the previous. 10.7 and 10.8 have seen it regress heavily.

Because Apple looked at who bought OS X Server and has attempted to reconcile that demographic with the software. Let's face it, even 10.6 server was pretty 'light'. Nobody in their right mind would use it for much except SOHO type stuff - and that's where Apple is trying to hit. Put it on a mini and you have a painless, brainless email / web / print / file service for dummies.

I think most Slashdotters would agree that they could roll up a better solution given almost any flavor of Linux and some remaindered desktop, but 'we' aren't their potential customer base - the rest of the planet is.

Honestly, they're not "sealed" to sell more hardware. Nobody in their right mind is buying a new $3000 laptop every three years.

The reasons are twofold:

1) It is easier to make the laptop thinner and smaller if it does not have to have the mechanics necessary to facilitate taking it apart (screws, bulkheads, etc), or to make it modular (why not just mount a bunch of SMT flash to the motherboard for a disk drive rather than have a 9mm thick 2.5" wide 3" long metal box with yet another circuit board in it? It's more profitable to just integrate everything on one board.

2) We're in a state of development where hardware is a decade or more ahead of software. There is too much computer and not enough problem. My Athlon X2 from 2005 does everything I need it to do, and will do so for years to come. So, why bother with upgrades anymore? They are unnecessary unless you're a hardcore gamer, in which case you're not buying a laptop.

To be fair, some people do buy a new $3000 laptop every year or two. They usually resell their old one for a large portion of the original purchase price, though (MacBooks in particular retain their resale value reasonably well).

To the rest of your post, you've got it exactly right - it's not motivated by a nefarious lock-in plot to take away consumer choice. It simply reflects a prioritization of user-customizability below other factors, like product aesthetics and cost reduction.

Nobody in their right mind is buying a new $3000 laptop every three years.

I'd argue nobody in their right mind is buying a new $1500 laptop every three years, even.

Other than the Mac I was recently provided by my workplace, none of the Macs in my household is less than three years old - and they all still work perfectly well for what we use them for. Because the rest of your post is exactly right - for the vast majority of users, the increase in hardware performance has far outstripped their needs.

As a bit of an extreme example - my mom was using a hand-me-down 2003 G4 Powerbook

I'd argue nobody in their right mind is buying a new $1500 laptop every three years, even.

And you'd be ridiculously narrow-minded about it. Just because that level of expenditure isn't reasonable for you doesn't mean it isn't reasonable for somebody else who has greater work needs or just a lot more money.

For a professional in just about any field, spending a few thousand dollars every year on new and improved gear is pretty much expected.

For instance auto mechanics are expected to own and maintain their own tools, this is not cheap.

If you are a musician, you are generally expected to purchase and maintain your own musical instruments. Computers are pretty cheap if you want to start comparing to electric guitars, amplifiers, cables, guitar strings etc.

The manufacturer should pay S&H to receive such sealed units for recycling and it should be as simple as submitting a request on their website for a prepaid addressed bag/envelope/box to be sent to the customer.

This isn't exactly new. The original Macintosh was rather deliberately designed to be a sealed unit, with no user-upgradable/replaceable components inside.

Just like pretty much every other piece of consumer electronics. How easy is it to upgrade your Blu-Ray player, or replace components in your clock radio? Microcomputers have been the exception to this, beginning as kits and retaining some level of user-customization (most of the time). But as they get closer in size a pocket calculator than to a refrigerator, with the components getting smaller and closer together in the process, the notion that you can open up and tinker with your laptop becomes about as practical as suggesting that you do the same with your wrist watch.

The original Macintosh was rather deliberately designed to be a sealed unit, with no user-upgradable/replaceable components inside.

What exactly were you going to upgrade, back then? That was well before the era of performance above-board video cards, multiple CPU choices, heat management, etc. Strangely, one of my earliest memories of computing was helping my dad add more RAM to one of the early Macs, probably the SE/30. It was far from a sealed unit...

Just like pretty much every other piece of consumer electronics. How easy is it to upgrade your Blu-Ray player, or replace components in your clock radio?

Simple devices, like a clock radio or a hammer, are not upgradeable. But take a hand saw - it is already upgradeable, and there are many blades to choose from. Same applies to your hand drill, your AR-15, your car, your home... Only very cheap items, or very complete items, are not upgradeable. Consumer electronics rates high on "completeness" - it does

A friend asked me to replace the battery in his iPhone. It took ten minutes, mostly because I had to use a knife as a screwdriver because the crappy one he got in the battery replacement kit broke (we were at a conference, no tools around). I think the total cost was about $5.

I had a hard drive dock that stopped working. I opened it up... one circuit board. After an hour and a half of poking at it with logic probes looking for the loose connection I gave up, tossed it and bought another one.

I'm sorry if someone came out with a $25,000 disposable car, that needed no service, was virtually indestructible for 5 years and then had to be turned in for the next $25,000 disposable car, I'm guessing most folks would tell Detroit to stick it where the sun don't shine. Certainly there would be a few who had the money and if it was a great driving experience, with super tires that last the life of the car, a super electric motor, and sealed systems so there was simply no need for maintenance, those few w

I'm sorry if someone came out with a $25,000 disposable car, that needed no service, was virtually indestructible for 5 years and then had to be turned in for the next $25,000 disposable car, I'm guessing most folks would tell Detroit to stick it where the sun don't shine. Certainly there would be a few who had the money and if it was a great driving experience, with super tires that last the life of the car, a super electric motor, and sealed systems so there was simply no need for maintenance, those few who wanted to drive without concern might enjoy it. The rest of us want to sell it when we're done, many want the value of a used car. A disposable car is great for the dealer and the wealthy guy who can afford a $25,000 expense every 5 years.

Isn't this exactly what anybody with a $420 a month car lease does (or anybody that trades in their car for the down payment on the next $420 a month car?)

apple sells an experience, it hasnt sold computers or catered to the "power user" since the 1980s. Instead, Jobs expanded upon the initial notion of easy to use computing thats attractive and modern and comes at a premium price. Part of that experience is acknowledging that in order to provide uniformity to the target demographic, the Mac-anything is going to be a closed box. when it breaks, the consumer need only buy a new one. Never fault the customer or insist they understand how to do anymore than consume the product and have fun within the lines.

Apple users, largely but not exclusively, are less computer owner and more internet user. For those of us who wanted a real computer, the kind you can get into and tinker with, we built one from parts.

What are you talking about? Is a Mac Pro not "POWER-USER" enough for you? Or is Two 2.4GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon processors and 12Gigs of RAM packaged in the most easily accessible case around too "braindead consumer"

I'm so sick of "braindead pc-bigots" who use the same tactics as the GOP/FOX News by ignoring or blatantly distorting the facts to make their bullshit points.

Ohhh and then their's this gem

Apple users, largely but not exclusively, are less computer owner and more internet user.

What a complete pile of bullshit. Why don't you head on over to Silicon Valley and take a look at the Dot Coms

Maybe some people do this, but very few people I know could afford to. I have a nice benefit at work where I can get a new computer once every 3 years, and they will pay for it, then deduct the cost out of my salary over the course of a year. Since I know I'll have that computer for at least 3 years, I always get the max RAM & HD for my computer along with the best video card I can get. I usually alternate between an iMac and a MacBook Pro laptop computer and give away the older computer to a family mem

This is horrible.
Who would buy anything that they can't easily repaired and/or upgrade themselves?
Next thing you know, we won't be able to pull the tubes from our radios and TVs and take them down to the drug store to test them.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with my sweetheart, a market research person placed rather high up in a Fortune 500 company. She's a smart cookie. I consider myself to not be too stupid either. Anyway here's the gist of the argument.

I'm an old dinosaur, having been around the PC since it took off in the 70's. I've always had a PC since my teenage years - Apple II, PC XT, AT, and all the way across the upgrade path to the current i7 quad core I'm writing this on. As a dinosaur, I always have in the back of my mind the modular design of the computer. PC's were originally sold to us on expandability - the ISA slots. With those 8 slots you could increase the memory, add in a co-processor, a graphics card - hard drives, when those came out. The sky was the limit. And no one wanted to buy a computer that had few ISA slots - I mean, why shoot yourself in the foot right at the beginning? Compatibility was also paramount. It had to be IBM-compatible, because that was the "gold standard".

But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.

Of course I think the current trend is wrong. I am dead set against the top-down model that manufacturers are desperate to impose on people - buy this machine, and then only buy from my store, and only run apps that I say, and eventually, don't run apps at all - lease CPU time from us "in the cloud" (which is just another way of saying the old mainfraime/client model). I think there is great danger in this route - because no one will look after your data, and you can be denied access to your data. And of course you will have to pay to access your data. Without even mentioning security problems. Personal computers had broken through that top-down model and everyone had a mini supercomputer (at least what passed for one in the 70's) on their desk and could do anything they wanted. Now you will only be able to do what you are allowed. But again, the market doesn't care. The market wants facebook and skype and angry birds and a camera and a phone and to be able to watch tv, and that's it.

Apple has seen this, and oh god are they ever cashing in. Others are catching up. But the direction of the technology is the same, be it apple or the competitors. A locked device, and pay for service. I think it's a shame, but I'll be dead soon.

But the market has changed. Kids nowadays, and Joe Public who isn't a computer expert at all - well they really don't give a damn about keeping their options open. They want a neat little package that works with as little hassle as possible. The things I value in a computer are not the things they value in a computer. And unfortunately as I age, I am slowly but surely moving into a very niche market.

That's because you're using a computer for the sake of using a computer. You grew up when computers were neat novel things that often required "computer users" to own and operate.

These days, computers are also tools. People are forced to use computers in their every day lives. Your mechanic needs a computer to diagnose a modern car. Your dentist needs a computer to manage their patient records. And so on. These people don't care about computers - they care about getting work done. If it's a sealed box that magically does what they need, as far as they care, that's all they need.

Same with all the kids and smartphones - they don't care about processors or what not, they care about communication, communicating and socializing with other people, and they don't care about how it really works underneath. They don't care about that - just what it enables.

It's just like cars - some people spend hours on the driveway fixing their cars or doing othe rmaintenance, while others on the road barely get an oil change every year or two. A car is a tool for many people - get from point A to point B. Some people get fancy cars to get there in style, others get boring econoboxes to get there cheaply and efficiently. And others spend their whole time restoring ancient classic cars.

Computing has changed from the niche geeks-and-nerds thing to something the whole population has to use. As such, the geeks-and-nerds will see the masses not care about what they care about, which is fine.

Take a look at where computers are used and realize that not everyone cares because they use computers to get work done. As long as it's getting work done, they're happy. If it's broken, they're more than happy to call in someone to fix it, just like they'd call a plumber to fix their plumbing, an electrician to fix the electricals, a mechanic to fix their engines and vehicles, etc.

You might not like it, which is completely fine. However, think of it this way - the next time you visit the dentist, wonder how much you're willing ot pay for them to learn how to upgrade the OS, install more RAM, change the CPU on their patient record system. And be billed for it. Ditto your mechanic - would you pay your mechanic to recompile the kernel while fixing your car?

Then realize that if every computer required someone skilled inside and out to operate, we'd still be with mainframes and time sharing systems. Instead, we have wonderful new technology and new innovation spawned by the ubiquitousness of computing poewr. Most of it is crap, but others make the world a more connected place and much less isolated.

If Apple were a monopoly I would get all the geek hand wringing over how serviceable their computers are, but they aren't by a long shot. As such this speculation makes no sense to me. Perhaps it's because I remember a time when a "PC" meant it came from IBM, or one of a few people who licensed bits of the technology from them. There was no choice.

Today I can build my own from Newegg. I can buy a generic pre-made box from Dell or HP, Acer or PacBell, or hundreds of others. I can buy sexy form-factor machines from Apple, Alienware (a dell company), Sony, Asus, and Shuttle. Tablets and phones that didn't exist even 5 years ago are now widely and cheaply available and have more power than a 10 year old "PC". Pogoplug and Raspberry PI are putting computers where people never thought they would exist.

The notion that an Apple Laptop's "sealed" nature is limiting consumer choice is laughable. Consumers have a lot of choice, and they are choosing a product that they like. Perhaps it's not the right laptop for much of Slashdot, but a lot of consumers are voting with their dollars.

It reminds me a lot about cars in the 80's when the new smog standards and computers came out. "I can't work on this in my driveway" all the old guys said. I need expensive computer gear to fix it that only a shop can own. Some of the new parts require specialized tools that are very expensive! Turns out most consumers didn't change their own oil or adjust their own timing, so the fact that the new computers and tech made a tune up every 50,000 or 100,000 miles rather than 3,000 with points and a carburetor more than offset the fact they couldn't work on it themselves. The benefits to consumers greatly outweighed any of the drawbacks.

I think the computer world is making the same transition. I remember a Toshiba laptop circa 1997 that had a NiCad battery that wouldn't even last an hour, and in less than a year of use wouldn't hold a charge at all. I kept two spares when traveling, and swapped them out. The battery better have been user replaceable in that thing. Now, with modern tech, folks are getting 10 hours out of Apple laptops and tablets, and seeing 5-7 year battery life with minimal degradation. People don't buy spare batteries anymore, even when they are modular. Tech has advanced, so now people want the thinner, lighter more than the replaceable battery.

As long as you can go to any of a hundred other vendors and get modular laptops and desktops complaining about one vendor who makes them non-serviceable is stupid. People have choice, and are voting with their dollars.

Only for the uneducated. It's not sealed box to me. but then the old codgers whined how all electronics were becoming dosposable when we stopped using tubes and started with the new flangled Integrated circuits.

And then I heard the same thing when surface mount stuff became popular....

Only the old codgers or uneducated will see it as a sealed box. The rest of us hackers will still find our way inside and modify or extend the life of these items.

Last TWO ipads I have owned were 100% free. as the previous owner dropped them and broke the screen.. I buy new screen off of ebay and replace the broken one. now I have a $900.00 64gig 3G ipad 2 for the $58.00 the screen cost me and 1 hour of my time.

I love what apple is doing, it means I will get a lot more free stuff as the uneducated throw it away or believe it has no value.

The answer is simple enough....don't buy Apple. One of the reasons I bought my current portable, an Asus EEE E350 netbook, is because it has plenty of upgrade options. i was able to upgrade from the default 2Gb to 8Gb of faster RAM for less than $30, there are plenty of tutorials showing how to replace the screen with a touch if you like, or replace the HDD with an SSD, there are even tools to OC or UC the APU if I want more speed or battery life, as well as third party batteries that will let me have all day usage if I need it, although i find the 5-6 hours i get plenty.

Just because Apple is the hipster brand doesn't mean you have to buy it, its not like we don't have plenty of choices. This is why I've built my own desktops for over 15 years, because not only do I get a better quality system at a cheaper price, but I can have it the way I want it, not the way some OEM thinks is best.

I wouldn't quite say "simple" for a lot of folks, myself included. There are two reasons why I ended up going with a unibody MacBook Pro (2009-era) when my last laptop died: It has a decently sturdy build quality (much better than the Dell I gave up) and, when something goes wrong, I can take it to a human, point out exactly what's wrong, and say, "Fix it" rather than play phone and shipping tag with some contracted-out support company. At the time, upgradability didn't factor into my decision; it was just as upgradeable as every other system I considered. Since I purchased this machine, I've upped the RAM from 4 GB to 8 GB and swapped the rotational hard drive for an SSD. I've also had to use the Genius Bar to address a charging issue (1 hour of my time, vs. 2-3 months getting the run-around with Toshiba for my wife's previous laptop; there's a brand I'll never touch again).

(Mac OS? It's nice because it has the Unix command line utilities I'm accustomed to; Cygwin and Interix are clunky at best. UI isn't as nice as Windows 7, though.)

Now that Apple has removed the upgradability feature, I'm not quite sure where I'll go next.

This is why I've built my own desktops for over 15 years, because not only do I get a better quality system at a cheaper price, but I can have it the way I want it, not the way some OEM thinks is best.

Oh, I definitely build my own desktops. Laptops are a different beast, though; because the form factors are non-standard, it's difficult to find parts which play nicely. You can't just add a dedicated graphics card, for example, and the motherboard+screen+case are pretty much a unit (though your example of replacing the EEE's screen for a touch-enabled one is impressive).

You made your trade off decision. There is no fault in choosing Apple. But if you felt your Laptop needed to be more configurable then you should have gone with someone else.

I had Macs for the past 10 years. When they went uni-body I switch to a Think Pad. (for many reasons) but one of the reason was the problem I had with all my previous macs was after a few years the battery would die, (some of them actually had bent my case a bit). But I could always replace the battery. The new ones say that it isn't

As far as interchangable parts for laptops go, get a thinkpad. Most models of the thinkpad (especially the "R" and "T" series) kept on using similar interchangeable parts and form factors. Not only are these easier to upgrade, but to keep on going if something fails.

Pocket calculators are designed to do one specific task. Yes, there are some more advanced models that can do other tasks, but they fall under the same category.What is a Mac or PC designed to do? Everything you can imagine. If it can be written in software, it should be usable on a machine like that. However, some software needs more RAM or a better graphics unit, or some users need more HDD space. That's why they're "upgradable", they're meant to be modular.

However that being said, this doesn't surprise me and should come as no surprise to any die-hard Mac users. Vote with your money.

Also, chances are that if you still have a pocket calculator from the 70s or 90s that those devices are still useful for their original intended purpose. They are not made obsolete by new software that chokes on a smaller hard drive or inadequate core memory.

"What the hell do you mean this Italian restaurant doesn't serve curry? I want curry damnit and anyone that doesn't want it is a complete idiot for not wanting curry. You idiots who eat what you like and not what I tell you to like are such sheep!"
That's basically what you just said. Get over yourself, your needs are not the only valid ones.

The fact that something can be maintained by an expert doesn't mean that it needs to be maintained by the end user. You can benefit from a maintainable device by simply paying the expert less than it would cost to replace the expensive device.

Consumers love those things, but consumers eat whatever crap is put before them. Customers on the other hand require a bit of respect and insist the manufacturers design to their specs not the other way around.